An Upper East Side man who was arrested in March on charges of attempted pedophilia -- and possessing over 11,000 images of child pornography -- now faces a new charge of creating child porn in the Sullivan County town of Lumberland, police say.
The story behind the recent arrest of 62-year-old Stephen Brown, a former information technology employee at a prestigious prep school in the Bronx, stretches back some 30 years. A recent -- and astonishing -- article in the New York Daily News tells the story of how two of Brown's alleged victims, now both in their 40s, helped police track him down to the Inn on the Hudson in Peekskill, where he allegedly planned to meet a 12-year-old boy for sex on March 4.
In the Daily News article, reporter Shayna Jacobs writes that the two men, Michael M. and John Kirby, began collecting evidence on Brown after Kirby spotted him in Central Park approaching young children:
John Kirby said the depth of what happened while he was an innocent prep school student didn’t register for decades — until he spied Brown on the prowl in Central Park in recent years.
“I don’t think it totally sunk in until I saw him ... that he’s this really Machiavellian, dedicated pedophile,” Kirby told The News.
The pair began taking photos of Brown, which they turned over to investigators. Police arrested Brown on March 4, and charged him with attempted dissemination of indecent material to a minor and attempted child endangerment.
After Brown's arrest, police found a huge trove of child pornography -- over 11,000 images -- on his electronic devices. At his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on April 18, prosecutors said Brown had himself taken over a dozen images of a 10-year-old boy, and told the judge that they believed there were other victims in Manhattan.
Brown's latest arrest, on Tuesday, May 13, raises the question of whether there were victims in Sullivan County as well. Announcing the new charges against Brown on Wednesday, state police said that Brown produced child pornography in Lumberland in 2012 and 2013.
In addition to his previous charges, Brown now faces eight counts of use of a child in a sexual performance, a felony. He was taken from the Albany City Jail, where he has been held since March 4, and arraigned in Lumberland town court on $1,000,000 cash bail before being returned to jail.
The statute of limitations on the accusations made against Brown by Kirby and M. has long since passed, and Brown will not be charged for those offenses.
